2nd grade

Try as we may, we just can’t get enough of seasonal books. Do you have the same seasonal-book-buying affliction? One of the ways I love using seasonal books is in a daily countdown to the holiday. Here’s how we count down to Halloween with a spooky read every day! We already have a post about…

How you start your day is often how you live your life. –Louise Hay Beginnings matter. What happens before the first bell even rings has a huge impact on the outcome of the entire day. The tone of the day is established in the first 20 minutes of the day. The effectiveness of the entire…

I sat down to type up what I did the first week of 2nd grade, but a few thousand words later, I’d only covered the first day! So it seemed like we probably needed 2 posts on that topic. If you want to know how I organized the first DAY of 2nd grade, check out…

When Heidi and I were both teaching 2nd grade, we had a dream. We had a dream of THE IDEAL WORD STUDY PROGRAM. We both feel like we had some really solid practices in place for teaching phonics and spelling. But we had complaints about our cobbled together word study program: It never quite seemed…

Back-to-school is the worst of times. It’s so stressful and exhausting (seriously it’s so, so tiring!). But it’s also the best of times! The feeling of a new beginning is absolutely exhilarating. I love that fresh start, where everything is possible and I haven’t screwed up…yet! I may be in the minority (okay, I’m definitely…